Monday, May 27, 2013

I love this video because it reminds me that sometimes I’m
so focused on one thing that I can’t see the other stuff (sometimes too cool not to
be missed stuff) going on around me.

I will make a confession. Since the LDSstorymakers
Conference, I have been toying with the idea of abandoning my self-publishing
goals and querying a traditional publisher. My reasoning was: (notice the past
tense)

1.When I first decided to self-publish I
still had children at home and my life was busy, full and not really my own,
but now that my children are leaving for college—I have much more flexibility
and time I can devote to someone else’s idea of how I should manage a career.

2.I could really use the help of a
professional editor, publisher, formatter, and marketing team.

Those are the reasons I vocalized. The reasons I didn’t
admit, even to myself, had much more to do with vanity, pride and wanting my
ego stroked.

I need to remember that writing for me is a lot like ice
cream. The beauty of ice cream is that there is always room for ice cream. It
doesn’t matter how much you’ve eaten, or how stuffed you are—there’s always
room for ice cream. It slides in and fills in all the cracks. But it’s not the
meal. It’s never the main course.

Writing is not and never will be my life. My life is
babies and weddings and ailing loved ones and graduations and missions and
funerals…family and friends stuff…creating a home stuff…serving and church
stuff. Writing is the ice cream.

It’s sometimes hard to remember that. Sometimes I get too
focused on watching my books rise and fall in the Amazon rankings that I forget
the real reason I write—because it’s cool, like ice cream, and it fills in all
the empty spaces with stories I love.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Last night I attended my daughters’ last high school choir
concert. I was sad, but maybe not as sad as I thought I would be. That’s
because I remember the other times I was sad, and I didn’t need to be.

I remember driving away from the university in my
husband-to-be’s convertible. He had graduated and I had not…and I was sad to be
leaving (excited about my upcoming marriage—but still sad to be leaving Brigham
Young University.) I didn’t know then that we would return two years later for
graduate school. I didn’t know that twenty years later I would begin a university
marathon that would last for twelve years (and counting) because five of my six
children would end up attending BYU.

Flash forward a few years and I’m at Mission Viejo Lake. My
babies were five and two and we would spend most afternoons playing at the lake
that was only a few blocks from our first home. I loved our little yellow house,
all our friends and I loved spending our afternoons at Lake Mission Viejo. But
my husband had an incredible job offer in New York City and we were moving to Connecticut,
and I was so happy for him (and more than a little sad for me.) I thought we
were moving to the East to stay. I didn’t know that only two years later we
would move back (to stay.) We have lived a few miles from Lake Mission Viejo
for more than 23 years.

So sometimes doors close and sometimes we end up opening
them up again. But even if we end up at the door we thought we had once closed,
it’s all new, because everyday we’re a little different because of the choices
we make.

Doors from the the musical Closer Than EverWell what do you know? (Well what do you know? Well what do you know? Well what do you know?)In front of me now (In front of me)is an open door.I'm moving ahead.Not sure of the way.And yet there's a light that I'm heading for.

It's closer than everCloser than ever.

Fresh out of bed your life is out racing you. There dead ahead another one's facing you.Seems like at times they're practically chasing you.Everywhere another door.

One day the doors are locked and you're sick of them.Next day they're yours and you have your pick of them.Finding the proper key that's the trick of them.Every where another door.

Doors to a place that no one knows.Doors that are open; doors that close.Doors that you pass through every dayturn into doors that bar the way.

Doors that keep out the chill of night.Doors that keep secrets locked up tight.Just when you have things set, when it's all in place, when your life is good there's another door.

Doorways are good; they can be enlightening.Doorways can change you, which isn't frightening.So tell me why my stomach is tighteningLooking at another door.

Doors can be wide; yes, that can be verified.Moving outside; the air can be rarified.I want to go, but why am I terrifiedLooking at another door?

What's on the other side? Guess what?Something I want but haven't got.Over the threshold. That's my shot.Will I go in there? I will not.

Maybe a brand new job awaitsOr 20 or 30 different fates.I'll be in charge at lastGet my life in shape And when all the ends, There's another door.

What's in the skies from Boston to Florida?Hirises rising each being horrider.What hits your eyes as you hit a corridor?Nothing but a wall of doors.

What would you give to see what is hiding there?All kinds of people just go inside of there.What kinds of secret lives are residing thereHiding all behind those doors?

What's going on inside those rooms?Kinky behavior one presumes.Here there's a spinster with her cats.Next door kid who sleeps on mats.

Here lives a family bland as pie.Next door a girl who was once a guy.What would you give to buy some electric eyeThat would let you spy on what's behind thosePeople you never met who are not like you, who are just like youare what's behind thoseJust when you have things set, when it's all in placeWhen your life is good, there's another door

Friday, May 17, 2013

Do you ever have one of those days where you wake up in the
morning, get dressed, look in the mirror and think: dang, I’m forty-something,
I gave birth to six kids and I look good! But then, night falls, evening comes
and you put on a dress for a business event, look in the mirror and think:
dang, I look like a forty something mom in a too tight dress. My boobs are
pointing south, my gut is threatening to pop this silk and what in the world
happened to my knees? Same day. Same mirror.
Same body. Your body hasn’t changed all that much in a few passing hours. What
changed is your own perception.

Good description does the same thing. How a main character
looks at his world tells us eons about what is going on inside that character’s
head. We can also learn a lot about a character by a description of how he
grooms (or doesn’t), what his space looks like and how he sees the people
around him.

Description is also great for building suspense. Next time
you watch a suspenseful movie, take note of the music, the sound, the stealth—if
it is well done, things are carefully choreographed to ratchet the suspense. I
just watched the movie Hitchcock—loved it. It’s about Hitchcock’s struggles to
produce Psycho. You might not have enjoyed Psycho, but you have to admit—it’s
suspenseful. Norman Bate’s house—could it get any creepier? Consider Manderley
in Daphne du Maurier's novel, Rebecca, the moors in Bronte’s Wuthering Heights,
and even the forests in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. All of those stories had
incredibly visual settings that added something
to the stories.

Everything you write should serve a purpose, or several
purposes, i.e. character development, suspense, plot movement. What you don’t want
to do is use your descriptive prose to show off. Remember, no one likes a show
off. One writer instructor called show off prose "self indulgent." Keep that in mind--is your prose enhancing your story, or inflating your ego?

That being said, I’m offering everyone a chance to show off.
If you have a great description scene, please share.

Here’s one of mine:

Outside, the wind whistled and moaned around the library,
tossing branches and bending trees. A near human-like scream tore Blair’s
attention away from the open dictionary, but after a moment of wind listening,
she returned to her work, collecting words and definitions for the upcoming
week.

The Rhyme’s Library (A murder mystery, because you just know
nothing good is going to happen while the wind is screaming.)

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I’m reworking a novel I wrote three years ago. I love it,
but I wrote it back in the days when I thought I had to be traditionally published.
There was a lesson I should have learned three years ago (you can read about Petra
going to Chiropractic College in the repeat post below) that I’m still learning
today.

I am a writer because I write. I am a successful writer because people chose to read my
stuff. I guess this means I became a successful writer when I first began
writing for the Arlington Eagle—my high school newspaper. And I guess this
means that I won’t stop writing when I make the New York Times best seller
list.

It’s like eating. I don’t eat a Thanksgiving dinner and say,
Now I am stuffed. I will never need to
eat again. Or running, I didn’t run a marathon and then say, Well check that off, I’ll never run another
mile. Or reading, I didn’t read Wallace Stegnar’s Crossing to Safety (the
epitome of a brilliant novel) and say, Now
I‘ll never read another novel, because nothing can top that.

There are some people who write one phenomenal book and are
done. But for most writers, I think there is always another story lurking in
their head waiting for daylight and how that story finds readers is just
another part of the process.

Petra found hers in a chiropractic college. Someday, she’ll
find other readers, but I haven’t decided how, yet. Or when, since when I started,
this was book one in a three part series. (And I haven’t written book two or
three, and did I mention I’m still working on the time capsule novels and there
are four of those and I don’t intend to publish any until all are finished? Then maybe I’ll publish Petra.)

So, this isn’t a teaser, because a publication date is way
in an unforeseen future. It’s a just reminder. A writer is anyone who writes.

Petra Goes to College

Finally, my novel is being read and not just by people who are doing me a favor. Bethany wanted to read my book and she asked Brandon to print it out for her. Brandon took it to his chiropractic school where he could print it out for free. But about a third of the way through the printing, the machine ran out of paper. He had hundred pages printed and he figured he’d do the rest later, when there was paper.

The next day he goes to school and finds that people are passing around a two hundred page novel printed on pink paper. He tells a friend that he has to get it back. Friend replies, “That’s yours? People are reading that.”

I imagine this medical student turning on a printer. It says no paper, he loads it with the only paper he can find… pink. And then the printer proceeds to shoot out the remainder of my novel. And of course, all the kissing happens in the remainder. Suddenly, all these students of anatomy have something less clinical to read.

Bethany said, “Brandon got it back, but I think there are pages missing.”I wonder which ones.

Beyond the Fortune-teller's Tent

The Arroyo Oaks
Renaissance Faire is the brain baby of Mrs. Brighton, part-time English teacher
and full time witch. Glass blowers, potters, and herbalists mingle with
students, teachers and parents on sawdust strewn paths lined with wooden
stalls. Knife and ax throwing are not only allowed, but encouraged. Games
include Drench-a-Wench (Mrs. Brighton) and Soak-a-Bloke (Principal Olsen.)
Wizards, elves, beer and barely covered booties are all welcome as long as they
help raise thousands of dollars for the drama department.

Petra’s notes

Chapter One

Petra stared at the fortune-teller’s
tent -- silky curtains, beaded strings, the faint aroma of vanilla, a gaudy
riot of color. She’d been waiting forever, but now that she was here, she took
a breath and then another. She turned to Robyn to say something glib, something
that would mask her nerves, but she couldn’t find the words.

Robyn squeezed her hand. “It’s so
romantic,” she whispered. “This is the perfect place for him to ask.”

“It’s so him, right?” Petra returned
Robyn’s squeeze, but her eyes never left the tent. She thought it ugly, garish
in a more is less sort of way. She sighed and wished that Kyle had just asked
without fanfare or hoopla. Maybe she should have asked him. Maybe they
shouldn’t go. Prom was so yesterday, dated like a debutant ball… Or a jousting competition, she thought,
her gaze going to the nearby stadium.

The frustration of denial settled
between her shoulder blades like an unreachable itch. Why did she even care
about prom? She’d been with Kyle for months; a silly dance didn’t define their
relationship.

Or did it? Some of her friends even had
their dresses. Petra hadn’t actually bought her dress, that would have been
presumptuous, but she did know which one she wanted. She’d found the perfect
shoes. She hoped Kyle would be okay with the coral colored vest she’d picked
out for him.

“It’s so who?” Zoe demanded.

Petra put her hand on top of Zoe’s
orange curls. Zoe was the pooper at the party, the stepsister that never should
have come and would have stayed at home if Laurel’s Aunt Ida hadn’t fallen down
the stairs. Petra had never even met Zoe’s Aunt Ida. She sounded like a potato.

Petra could understand why Laurel felt
uncomfortable taking Zoe to a hospital, after all, no one sane would ever
wanted to take Zoe anywhere, let alone a place where people needed quiet and
rest.

Robyn rolled her eyes at Petra. Robyn
and Petra called themselves tele-friends, because they could read each other
like open books. Now Robyn nodded at the tent, her head bob saying, just go.

“Do you think he’s in there?” Petra
whispered.

Robyn widened her eyes, as if to say
of course. “He said he would be, didn’t he?”

“Who’s he?” Zoe demanded. “Are you
talking about Kyle?”

Petra swallowed and ignored Zoe,
tried to forget her existence. “Actually, he didn’t say anything, but his note said to meet at the fortune-teller’s
tent. What if he didn’t send the note? What if this is joke?”

“Then it’s not a very funny one.” Robyn
shook her head and her curls bounced around her shoulders. “It was Kyle.” She
sounded way more confident than Petra felt. Robyn cut her a sideways glance and
a small flicker of doubt tickled in Petra’s mind. Why did she suspect the
fortune-teller’s tent was more Robyn’s idea than Kyle’s? Petra squelched the
thought. Kyle was her fortune. Nothing else mattered.

“Kyle has hotitude that sadly so
often accompanies physical beauty,” Zoe sighed, parroting her mom.

Petra groaned. Did her parents
dislike Kyle just because he was rock star gorgeous? She shook away all the
other , more legitimate, reasons why her parents might not like Kyle.

“Ignore her,” Robyn mouthed over Zoe’s
head. “And just go already.” She gave Petra a little push toward the tent.

Petra dug in her heels, or in this
case, her silky flats. “Wait, how do I look?”

“As always, you’re beautiful.” Robyn
straightened Petra’s tiara, gave her a small hug, and then turned her shoulders
tent-ward.

“Pretty as a Petra poopy picture,” Zoe
said, muttered.

Petra frowned at Zoe and then glanced
down at her dress, last year’s prom gown. She and Robyn were the only two at
the faire dressed as princesses. All around her she saw women wearing laced up
bodices, men in tights and knee high boots, horses covered in bright cloths and
even a snowy white owl on a perch. Zoe in her cut up pillowcase and drapery
tassel looked more in place than Petra and Robyn in last year’s prom-wear. She
sniffed. She didn’t care that she was overdressed. She put a finger on the
tiara; perhaps the faux diamonds were too much. Too late now.

Straightening her shoulders, clutching
her beaded purse, she headed to the tent. Her steps faltered and she turned
back to Robyn and Zoe. “Come with me,” she said to Robyn, taking and tugging
her friend’s hand.

Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t
leave me here alone!”

Robyn motioned to all the faire-goers:
teachers, fellow students, and neighbors. “Alone?”

Zoe’s eyes, for a moment, looked almost
as crazy as her hair. “There are witches, people with swords, wild animals!”

Petra saw several people she knew, but
Zoe, who had only just moved to Arroyo Oaks, probably didn’t know any of them.
She knelt down, so that she could look Zoe in the crazy eyes. “And not one of
them will hurt you, I promise. If anyone bugs you, which they won’t, call a yellow jacket,” Petra said, referring to
the Arroyo Oaks security guards that patrolled the school grounds and kept
peace by way of blow-horns. “Please, just sit.”
Petra stood and pointed at a well placed stump, wishing for perhaps the
zillionth time that Zoe would take lessons from her dog. Frosty greeted all
instructions with a lolling tongue and wagging tail. Zoe didn’t receive
instructions, she counterattacked them. Poodles and stepsisters had very little
in common, except for in Zoe’s case, the hair-do.

“If you leave me here—” Zoe began.

Petra silenced her by holding up a
finger. “If you can be quiet, sit and not say a word, I’ll buy you a funnel
cake.” She raised her eyebrows to see if
Zoe would take the bribe or would if she needed to toss in a caramel apple. Her
health-foodie stepmother, Laurel, wouldn’t pony up for brand name peanut
butter, let alone treats fried in oil and covered with sugary powder.

Zoe sat with a humph and picked at the
hem of her pillowcase tunic and her gaze went to the corral across the path.
Her eyes lit up. “I want a funnel cake and to ride that horse.”

Petra and Robyn both turned to watch guy
lead a stallion through a wooden gate.

“Giddy-up,” Robyn said, staring.

The guy had brown shoulder length hair
tied back with a leather thong and wore soft, fawn colored breeches and
matching knee high boots. His white shirt billowed around a wide leather belt
that hung about his hips. Three simultaneous thoughts struck Petra. The first:
everyone else, including herself, wore costumes, but this guy looked at ease in
his breeches and boots as if they were his everyday clothes. The second: his
eyes and the small smile curving his lips sent a jolt of recognition up her
spine, although she knew they’d never met. She would have remembered him. The third:
she was quite sure this guy would never wear a coral colored vest.

“Isn’t he awesome,” Zoe breathed, her eyes
large and round. “He’s so huge.”

Robyn gave Zoe a funny look and Petra
laughed at the misunderstanding. “You
can’t ride him,” she said, watching the Arabian toss his mane and pull at the
reins held by the guy with long brown hair. The stallion fought the bit, rose
up on his hind legs and scissored the air with his hooves. “He’s not one of the ponies they lead through
rink.”

Zoe frowned, sending her freckles south.
“I’m sure he’d rather be with me on the trail than in that horrible jousting
place.” Earlier, they had tried watching the knights’ competitions. Zoe, unconcerned for the men being thwacked about
by lances, had wailed for the sweat dripping horses.

“I’m sure you’re right, Zo, but I’m
pretty sure I’m right, too,” Petra said. “They’d never let you take him out of
their sight. Besides, he looks fast and barely tame.”

“I like them fast and barely tame,”
Robyn said under her breath, smoothing down the pink chiffon skirt of her prom
dress.

From the jousting arena came the
cheering and huzzahs of the crowd. Petra heard the horses’ hooves thundering
and the clanging of lances hitting shields and armor. She smelled roasted
turkey legs, the fires from the pottery kilns and dung. Her senses careened on
overload and when the guy with the horse caught her eye and winked, dizziness
and a skin-pricking sensation of déjà vu washed over her.

Zoe looked up at her, smiled and said,
this time, in a voice as sweet as funnel cake, “If you let me ride that horse I
won’t tell about you and face-sucking Kyle.”

“There’s been no face-sucking!” At least
not in front of Zoe.

Zoe put her fists on her hips and jutted
out her chin. “Who says?”

Petra blew a loose strand of hair from
her eyes. “You can’t ride that horse!”

Zoe’s gaze cut to the corral and
lingered on the stallion. “But you can ask if I can.”

“How much money?” Petra nearly growled.
Since her dad’s marriage she’d been given an allowance ‘to helpher find her own financial feet in thereal world,’ Laurel’s words, and
Petra’s feet wanted to wear a pair of coral colored heels to prom.

Petra frowned at Zoe; eight-years old
seemed too young to know the art of female bartering.

“We’ll ask him right after we visit the
fortune-teller,” Robyn promised Zoe, sending a let’s-get-together-soon smile at
horse guy.

Zoe scowled, folded her arms and watched
the horses parading in the corral, but she didn’t budge from the stump.

Petra turned to the fortune-teller’s
tent and forced herself to not look at hot horse guy, although she imagined she
felt his gaze on her back. She towed Robyn with her.

Held up by large wooden poles, the tent
had brightly woven damask walls. A barrel-chested man wearing nothing but gold
chains, large rings and red bloomerish pants guarded a money jar. A hand
printed sign propped by the jar read FesterForetells your Fate.

“Fester?” Petra whispered to Robyn and
stopping short of the tent. “He sounds like he needs a squirt of Neosporin.”

“What if he’s not in there?” Petra
asked, stopping in front of the guy dressed in bloomers. She flashed the guy a
nervous glance, but he remained motionless and expressionless, as if she and
Robyn didn’t even exist. Petra wondered what would happen if she poked him.
Would he do more than flinch? Would he do even that?

“Then we’ll have our fortune’s read.”
Robyn gave the bloomer guy a sideways look, but he stared straight ahead not
even looking at Robyn, which Petra found impressive. Most guys couldn’t resist
looking at Robyn.

“I’m telling Daddy that you ditched me,”
Zoe said.

Petra scowled at Zoe. It still stung to
hear Zoe call her dad ‘Daddy.’ “We’re not ditching you. It’s
more like we’re parking you in a five minute loading zone.” Petra made a lever
pulling motion. “There, I put on the emergency brake. You’re stuck.”

Petra turned her back on Zoe and faced
Robyn. “What if he doesn’t come inside? He could stand out here for eons while
some biddy predicts I don’t get into a good school and end up selling shoes for
the rest of my life.”

Petra sent Zoe another
be-quiet-or-be-dead look, but then realized Zoe could be right. What if Kyle
was just on the other side of the curtain, waiting for her, listening to her
arguing with Zoe? Fighting the flush
creeping up her neck, she dropped money into Fester’s jar and pushed back the
curtains of the fortune-teller’s tent.

When the curtain of crystal beads fell
back into place behind Robyn, it carried the eerie sound of tinkling falling
glass shards. Heavy incense hung in the air. Petra blinked, waiting for her
eyes to adjust to the gloom. She scanned the tiny space, searching for Kyle. A
crystal ball on a table draped in silks glowed and sent a shivery light that
didn’t reach the far corners of the tent. Large pillows dotted the tapestry
rugs and Petra nudged one with her foot, wondering if she should sit and wait.
Could Kyle be hiding behind the draped curtains? No. He probably wasn’t here
yet, meaning that he hadn’t heard her and Zoe, and that was good. Wasn’t it?

“Petra, welcome,” a voice in the
semi-darkness cackled.

Petra laughed when Robyn, just behind
her, jumped. It took a moment for her to find the owner of the voice, a hunched
man sitting on a pillow in a dark corner. In front of him lay a collection of
tarot cards, face up: a fool dancing, tossing stars into a purple sky, a
magician holding a wand scattering glitter.

“I’m afraid you must come alone,” Fester
said, leaving his gaze on Petra’s face as his twisted hands gathered the cards,
and tapped them into a deck.

Still expecting Kyle to suddenly appear,
Petra didn’t even watch her friend leave, but she knew when Robyn had gone by
the flash of daylight that came and then left with the rise and fall of a
curtain and the jangle of the crystal beads.

“There are journeys some must undertake
on their own,” the fortune-teller said, staring up at Petra.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Writer’s write books. That doesn’t mean they can sell them. Selling
books is a numbers game for the nonnumerical. For those of us who used our math classes to
compose poems to the adored, poison pen letters to those we despised, and
stories about the algebra teacher turning into a dragon, here’s a few number
break downs I found online. I’m still learning. I just stumbled over where you can check your sales rank of all your books from all
channels on Amazon. Just enter the ASINs

The rankings are interesting to look at if you have a book
out there and you are hoping to, for example as of January 2012, get on the Top
100 Romantic Suspense Bestsellers List on Amazon. If I look at the Romantic
Suspense Kindle Ebook List and click on the book title of #99 or #100 and that
book has a Bestsellers Rank of 3,865 (#99) and 3,875 (#100), then I know I need
a 3,875 or better to get on that list.

Amazon Bestsellers Rank is the number you find beneath the
Product Description. Every book on Amazon has an Amazon Bestsellers Rank. Click
on any title and then scroll down until you see it.

As of March 2013

Amazon Best Seller Rank 50,000 to 100,000 - selling close to
1 book a day.

Amazon has a bevy of Bestseller Lists, all split into Free
and Paid listings. The big one is the Top 100 in the Kindle Store, and
placement on this list can drive staggering amounts of sales. This list is
populated with items ranked #1 to #100 in the overall Kindle Store, which
includes not just e-books, but also things like games, magazines, and
newspapers.

The exact algorithm Amazon uses to assign a Sales Rank to
each book is a closely-guarded secret, but the general make-up is easy to
deduce. Simply put, your Sales Rank tells you how many books are selling more
than you at this moment in time (it’s updated hourly). However, it also takes
account of historical sales. More recent sales are weighted much more heavily
in the algorithm, though, and velocity plays a big part too (how much your
sales are increasing at that moment in time). There’s a lot more to it, but
those are the basics.

The Kindle eBooks list is further subdivided into various
fiction and non-fiction lists, with various genres and sub-genres (and
sub-sub-genres). Some categories, like Literary Fiction, have no sub-genres,
and you need a pretty high Sales Rank – around #2000 – sneak in at the 100th
spot on the list.

Other categories, like Science Fiction, have several
sub-genres. Something like Science Fiction/Anthologies doesn’t even have 100
books in its category, and you can place on this Bestseller List with any
ranking at all (the 62nd book has a ranking of #891,386).

(Note: the importance of picking the right categories for
your book shouldn’t be underestimated. If you pick two competitive categories
without sub-genres, like Historical Fiction and Literary Fiction, and you
aren’t selling enough to regularly chart better than #2000 or so in the overall
store, you are missing out on placement on any Bestseller Lists, and hurting
your sales. There is great advice here on picking categories for your work.)

All of these categories and lists are reader discovery
tools. Many readers browse through these lists looking for books to buy.
Placement on these lists can drive a lot of sales.

Friday, May 3, 2013

A
number of years ago I had the opportunity to hear Linda Howard talk on the
twelve steps of intimacy, a talk she based on the works and studies of Desmond
Morris, author of The Naked Ape. I found it fascinating. I began watching for
intimate “tells” in the people around me. (Yeah, I’m an avid people watcher and
eavesdropper, unless I’m thinking about a story I’m writing, then I’m pretty
much oblivious. It’s a toss-up as to whether I’m dialed in and taking mental notes
or I’m in my own stratosphere. I’m a risk.)

Today I want to talk about that first step of
intimacy—the first glance. How many of us can recall the first instance we saw
our spouse? I can, although it was more than 31 years ago. He sat on a nubby
green, ugly sofa, friends on either side of him. He wore blue corduroy pants
that matched his eyes. Of course, I didn’t know I had reached at a life
changing moment, but I had. I also didn’t know that after he left, he told his
friends that he had first dibs on asking me out. I don’t remember what we said
to each other—knowing me, not much. But voice to voice is step three on the
intimacy ladder, and we’re talking about step one— the first glance.

Dr.
James Dobson, author of Love for a Lifetime:
Building a Marriage that Will Go the Distance, also recounts the 12 steps of
intimacy. He wrote:

A glance reveals much about a person — sex, size, shape, age,
personality, and status. The importance people place on these criteria
determines whether or not they will be attracted to each other.

When the man and woman who are strangers to each other exchange
glances, their most natural reaction is to look away, usually with
embarrassment. If their eyes meet again, they may smile, which signals that
they might like to become better acquainted.

Here are the first glance moments in three of my
novels.

A mean wind blew the
clouds shrouding the moon and a beam of light landed on a lone figure near the
bow. She fought the wind for her hat and
her hair, a tangle of dark honey, swirled around her head. The hat, pinched
between her fingers, caught another gust, set sail and skittered across the
deck.

The woman managed to
capture her hair into twist, and she looked over the deck in his direction. Her
eyes widened when she saw him and she backed up against the rail.

Stealing Mercy

The intruder flipped
on the switch in the kitchen—her kitchen—and flooded the dark with yellow
light. Penny pressed herself up against a tree, hiding and watching. Tall,
thin, blond, dressed in faded jeans and a button down white shirt that offset
his tan skin and startling blue eyes—he didn’t look like a Lurk. His gaze
peered into the dark, looking past her and focusing on Wolfgang. “Shoo!” he
called. “Go home!”

Losing Penny

Blinded by fear
mingled with rain, Blair ran into a large, warm expanse of flannel. For a small
moment a slicker engulfed her, and then she tangled with an umbrella. She
slipped on the wet pavement and fell hard on her hands and knees. The creel
landed beside her and the cat cried in protest. Rain and embarrassment washed over
her. She pulled the creel onto her lap and checked its strap.

“Are you all right?” A tall man with wavy,
honey colored hair gazed at her with kind green eyes.

Stooping to pull her
upright, his large hand swallowed hers. “You’re shaking.”

The Rhyme’s Library

Please feel free to share your own, either real
life moments, or story moments…they’re all good.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

I’m having one of
those why do I bother sort of days. I read pages 13-23 of Gemma Goes to
Hollywood last night at my writers’ group and I came home hating my writer
friends. Because they are talented, because they are successful, but mostly
because their critiques sting…not because they were mean, but because they were
right. I hate that. Insightful, honest, helpful creeps. All of them.

I look at my writer friends I wonder what makes them get up
in the morning, why do they have the ability to sit at the computer and write story
after story, what feeds their motivation and how can I get some that to come my
way? Before I remember that I have published five novels and that I have about
7 novels in my head. I don’t need ideas. Maybe if I had less ideas, I would
feel better about not writing.

If I can’t/won’t write, then I read. I picked up a bestselling,
award winning book and read about half of it. Hated it. Because it’s not mine. I don’t know if I can finish it. I don’t know
if I can finish the novel I started—the unbestselling, nonaward winning one I’m (not) writing, or I was writing. Past tense writing.

I’m gripped by self doubt. I wonder if I should be feeding the hungry,
clothing the naked, engaging in a crusade to save an endangered species. But I
don’t know how to do those things. I do know how to write stories.

Today is Thursday—errand day. So, I don’t even have a toilet
to clean (did that on Tuesday) or a shelf to dust (did that yesterday.) I could
go to the store, but someone already did that for me. More helpful creeps. I’m surrounded by them.

On days like this I need to remember where I started and
where I’ve been. I recently discovered Amazon’s Author Central. They put my
career on a chart. It’s all spiky, with peaks and valleys, with a gradual
uphill slope.

I can’t see where I’m
going. It’s like running on a foggy day—one foot, or one sentence in front of
the other. The only thing I can be sure of, if I stop running or writing, I’ll
get nowhere pretty fast. Hate that.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

I stole this off the kindleboards. I'm posting it here to share. Somethings are just too good to keep to yourself.HELPFUL LINKS FOR INDIE WRITERSFrom Christiana MillerYou can find these links as a clickable document (which will be updated with new links as I find more of them) on my website at: